But last night Silver Lake's golden-locked son traded in those humble but iconic venues for another iconic but much more grandiose space.
Beck Hansen, the godfather of '90s flanneled irony once known for cranking up a leaf-blower mid-show, played the Hollywood Bowl for the first time. It wasn't what anyone expected when they first heard that slide guitar hook in “Loser" in 1994 but that was the beauty of the show. It was a homecoming parade for grown-up slackers drinking vodka at the Bowl, shouting along with Beck's lyrics, those famous junkyard word clusters like “mouthwash jukebox gasoline."
So how did he do? Great, once he got “Loser" out of the way. For the first song of his 90-minute set, which would wind him through all eras of his songbook aided in part by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra Strings, Beck looked tense and uninspired. But then he gave away to “Nausea," from his 2006 album, The Information, and the show started gathering strength.
In fact, the stronger material from the first part of the show was from the later albums. “Que Onda Guero" sounded street-sonic with its patchwork of honks, food cart bells and snatches of Spanish. His cover of Bob Dylan's withering “Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat" was also a nice choice, a folk song with bite, like many Beck songs at their roots. Guitarist Jessica Dobson, who has her own band, Deep Sea Diver, contributed strong supporting guitar and vocals, her young, fresh voice chiming in with Beck's like a fan had joined him onstage.
Perhaps most surprisingly, two works from Midnight Vultures, Beck's somewhat misunderstood 1999 album that could be seen as an antecedent to the cocaine-hipster era, were given electrifying, cool treatments. “Nicotine & Gravy" was slow and funky with shivery, glassy keys from Brian Lebarton. “Mixed Bizness" was vampy, soul-erotic fun. All of it was stunningly accompanied by the background video screen, which projected hugely pixelated metallic images of tree branches or other abstract shapes and was reliably beautiful throughout the night.
